


Rei?

by copingskillz



Category: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Genre: Gen, I Tried To Cut Down On Using Word Fluff But I Need More Practice At That, Memories, Mother and Son, Motherhood, My First Fanfic, Self-Reflection, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25504681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copingskillz/pseuds/copingskillz
Summary: What if Rei had real character development? Wouldn't it be fun to see her work through the implications of her existence, learn to appreciate her life, and grow in a weird mother/best friend relationship with her weird son/classmate? I think it'd be pretty cool. That's what i want to write, but this is my first fanfiction and one of my first serious writings in my young adult life.
Kudos: 5





	Rei?

**Author's Note:**

> This story is so INCOMPLETE! But I am very isolated, and I would greatly appreciate some constructive criticism and maybe encouragement? I do plan to add a lot more to it!

My favorite season is autumn. Which can’t be possible. I can’t have ever seen the beauty of the orange leaves, they disappeared before I was born. All my senses have known is this eternal summer, and the smothering cloak of darkness that embraced me in birth and courts me in sleep.

My dreams and flashbacks have come to attack my conscience more often since the Ikari boy transferred to Nerv and to school. I have dedicated much time to cross-referencing him and the boy from the glimpses of unfamiliar memories; from him I can feel the tip of familiarity. I think he holds some secret about myself.

Ikari-kun is not the only soul I know from memory. I’ve seen Commander Ikari, and Commander Fuyutsuki.

Commander Ikari… I’ve known his face from beneath it, in the warmth of his arms. I know it in profile, as we’ve walked abreast with hand in unnatural hand. But, if I am to be what I believe myself to be- Ayanami Rei- these perceptions of the Commander cannot exist.

In my life, Commander Ikari has only taken to addressing me with the frontal view of formality. And Commander Fuyutsuki, I have seen him through the blurred lens of a face contorted in a smile; my eyes nearly pushed shut by the joy held in my cheeks. I see him upon a vivid backdrop of orange. I’ve never smiled at Commander Fuyutsuki this way: he has never given me reason to.

Each moment more that I spend with Ikari-kun in my life, I feel as if I am a step closer to understanding the self that I was so abruptly thrust into. I’ve regressed deeper into my isolation, but I do not fear for my integrity; Ikari-kun has shown me worth. Not the worth that the Commander has instilled in me and carved into my tablet, a necessity to pilot Eva effectively. To Ikari-kun I am worth something as a companion, someone who belongs beside him; there is value to my actions and the words I impart to his presence. My life is inherently worth continuing, regardless of the success of my missions with Eva. I can be cared for.

I once cared for Ikari-kun. Not that my care has vanished from my current life, I mean that I have cared for him in whatever life and time it was that my impossible memories come from. Ikari Shinji-kun is the little boy. I cannot quite parse my relationship to him, but intensive rumination leads me to believe I am somehow intimately related to Commander Ikari and his son. My snapshots of the Commander suggest that whoever I was before Rei, I was someone he held close to his heart.

Surely he senses something in me. Most peers of mine have been more adept at discerning other’s interiors than I am. The past few weeks have yielded something of a breakthrough into my investigation of my origins. No one speaks of her- of me- but I can see her in their faces; I am Shinji-kun’s mother, Commander Ikari’s wife.

My friendship with Shinji-kun has allowed me to develop the beginnings of reading other’s faces. Looking into his face, I find, fills me with such euphoria; especially now that I know why. I’ve worked on studying the movements of his eyebrows and what the different postures of his lips mean. A good amount of my time has also been spent scrutinizing the details of his eyes. Dr. Akagi suggested, when I was younger, that I work on making eye contact when others are speaking to me. Shinji-kun is more than deserving of my attempts, and I benefit from examining those “windows to the soul”.

Now, I can see who I am on their faces. When I speak with the Commander, he stares at me seemingly impassively. But I recognize now the obsession in his gaze. He sees her; the woman in whose image he made me, to fulfill his selfish desires. Dr. Akagi sees her too. Imperceptible to others, her eyes shift into a glare of disgust and a slight grimace settles on her face whenever I am brought into the room.

But Shinji-kun’s eyes always hold me delicately. I’ve come to know my reflection in them as the soft devotion of friendship. In this life that has created me so lonesome, and his life that has spurned him from all love… we’ve found friends in each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :)


End file.
